


A Night in Old Marseille

by Unovis



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Clothing, Crossdressing, F/F, Historical, Military Uniforms, Napoleonic Wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:24:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unovis/pseuds/Unovis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda couldn't resist a uniform. Neither could anyone else, that night.<br/>A re-post, written in 2008.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night in Old Marseille

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Marseille, France, in the early 1810s.

Amanda took a shallow breath.

She did it on a whim. She did it for the sword. She did it to teach an arrogant flat-rumped whelp that ripping a woman's bodice was neither clever nor mannerly nor safe.

Perhaps she did it because she loved a uniform.

For all that, for reasons she'd recall in leisure and repent in haste, here she was: strolling down a (mercifully dark) Marseille street in the borrowed--the captured--uniform of one of Napoleon's own hussars. She thought it was a hussar. Something fancy and arrogant with a wicked smile and an officer's saber and poor judgment of a woman's strength.

She wasn't heartless. She left him the dress.

The pelisse alone was a trophy. Sky blue, silver laced, trimmed with fur, it was exquisite and costly and highly marketable to soldiers who had ruined or lost theirs in battle. She wore it slung over her left shoulder, as on parade; it was the style and the hanging sleeve and edge helped cover her chest. The charming white dolman underneath was lashed across with yellow lace (tight lace!) adorned with twenty tin buttons. On her head, over her plaited hair, was a blue shako with a plume and chin strap, and on her feet were soft black boots, snug in the calf and loose in the foot. Between were tight light-blue trousers with more lace up the sides. They were _tight_ blue trousers that she'd rolled up over her thighs and tugged up with both fists to just below her ribs. Her firmly packed thighs, her round bottom, were framed by the short-backed dolman and pelisse. She should have been less generous with the pair of cherry-red furled silk stockings she tucked down the front and between her legs. Inside the roll were a dozen mixed gold francs, lending a little stiffness and weight. Every step pulled the inseam tighter and higher into cleaving, heating folds. She only had to walk from here to her rooms by the waterfront, to her looser female garb and her casket of acquired assets. Thence she would board a swift ship to warmer climes with a less military occupation. Too many swords here in both practiced and awkward hands for her taste. She stroked the saber's hilt.

It was a good two miles to the inn, traveling by dead reckoning, cutting across town. The streets she crossed now were narrow and unsavory, their shadows punctuated at random by oil lamps hung from iron brackets on posts and building facades. Her dress would have dragged in dirty water. Men walked abroad in twos and threes and women seemed not to walk at all. Swagger, she told herself. Chin up, knees out. Not her first time imitating the sex; possibly the first in this bloody, muddy decade. She hoped no one noticed the lack of a mustache. This seemed to be a naval district, with wandering sailors and the odd cocked hat. Ah, here a whore. There a whore. And another, giving her the eye. She grinned, she couldn't help herself. She looked a saucy lad. She shifted her shako to a more rakish tilt and winked at a painted, one-toothed Poll. You could do a lot with a single tooth, she mused.

Her back tensed before she rightly heard. There was someone following, clicking behind her. Tap, tap, tap. Not an Immortal, just a persistent someone, a light-stepping someone, a man from the length of the stride. She turned down a shabbier street. The footsteps followed, hastened, moving up behind. What was invitation from a woman could be a warning from a man. She prepared a scowl, her hand tight on her sword, and abruptly turned. "Heu!" she snapped, roughening her voice. And blinked at a gray moustache, blueberry eyes, and red cheeks, at a stately elder officer decked in green and gold, topped with a brass helmet: tall and merry and boiled as a suet pudding. He swayed and smiled. She sketched a salute--she hoped he deserved one--and stood aside, inviting him to pass. He hiccupped and said something in garlic and German. "Walk with me, yes?" it sounded like. She inclined her head; while she fished in her vocabulary for a polite military demur, he clamped a hand above her elbow and pressed forward, pressed her forward, perforce. She stumbled, then righted herself with dignity, trying to trot with him and keep in character. "Where, Sir?" she asked in French; her German was utilitarian at best. Or perhaps she heard the language wrong. "Whom have I the honor of...of walking along?" He grinned and winked and puffed them both ahead, muttering pleasantly, incomprehensibly, in the direction of her ear.

She stepped with him through puddles, over tilting paving stones, and considered. They were proceeding roughly toward her inn. If he were too drunk to see her clearly, she could do worse than walk with a companion. She could outrun him if necessary, though she'd rather not attract attention. Or run in these loose boots and forking, binding pants. He waved in front of them vaguely, bumbling on. "Beautiful" and "drink" she heard. Very well. Set him in a tavern and duck out.

The street twisted and turned and became even less respectable. The torches were farther between and the alleys were darker. More than once they passed couples mumbling in the shadows, heard but unseen. She eyed her companion. Not bad looking. Handsome, even, if he were sober. Cavalryman, from the bow of his legs and line of his sword. She didn't recognize the uniform. Ornate, but not as flattering as hers. It would suit Rebecca with her red hair and long waist and slender arms. He caught her glance. He winked. And jerked his head sideways, with a twitching smile.

Sideways was a passageway, unlit, along a blind wall. She smelled urine and horses, heard voices and a beating noise that might be music--back of a tavern, possibly. Her officer pulled her in, the white facings on his cuffs just visible. He stumbled to a stop and dropped her arm to steady himself against the wall. Over his shoulder she saw him lift the edge of his jacket to tug his trouser buttons open. _Charmant!_ But a pissing officer was an officer occupied and unlikely to pursue. Let him open and get on with it... she felt a little sympathetic pressure, a tingle in her croft against the rolled, packed silk and cutting seam. If she could just secretly rearrange... the officer's flies gaped wide, his hand groping inside. She cupped her palm around her dissimulating bulge and pushed her fingers up, seeking to shift the stocking sausage forward and aside. "Haha." The officer chuckled. He lurched aslant and with his left hand grasped her wrist and the sausage roll. His other hand was filled now, his member out and...on display? He wagged it, he squeezed it, he rolled it playfully, a goosey neck and head lolling toward her captured hand. He snorted like a pig.

"Oh, _non! Non, non, mon...géneral._ " Amanda gasped. She strangled a laugh that burned the back of her throat. " _Nein. Bitte._ " She pulled away, shoved his shoulder, but he clung to her, had hooked a finger in her breeches buttonhole, stumbling with her as she scrambled back, snorting, waving...clucking now, genially. Their swords swung and clanked, her boots slid under her, her shako wobbled, and the laugh would not stay down, damn it to hell. She backed and choked, he gobbled and duckwalked in pursuit, pushing them back, back the way they'd entered. She heard a horse and voices behind her in the street--saw a shadowy body approach from the passage's other end; no help for it now. She beat down violently on their joined hands, tearing off the button and turning his gobble to a squawk. His head bobbed forward and met her elbow, brought up beneath his chin, as she chopped a foot against his knee; but he crumpled against the wall instead of falling back, clutching at her sword and the trailing sleeve of the pelisse, squalling against her thighs. She slammed the top of his helmet but only jammed it down around his ears; she kicked and wrestled to clear the jacket and saber's hilt, to push him off. " _Merde!_ "

" _Hilfe!_ " he squealed, clinging fast, climbing up her front. The figure in the dark ran up. A man in the street called "Halt!" She punched his chest, bruising her knuckles, and wrenched his helmet awry. And then the shadowed figure was on them, swinging an arm. She heard a muffled clang! and the officer's head bounced from the wall to her breast, then down. A woman, a girl, in a cloak flashed her teeth and dropped her weapon; a brick or stone, slung in a piece of cloth.

"What's that?" called the man from the street.

"Hsssst." The girl pulled her by the jacket--really, Amanda had been pulled about enough tonight--the few yards to the street, to the officious sounding voice and ( _merde alors!_ ) glare of a torch.

"What business there?"

"Love, Captain!" sang the girl. Amanda pulled her shako down and hauled the pelisse around to its proper angle. Good God, did she salute this one? She squinted and caught a better look. Not a horse but a mule, and one loaded with packs. Not a captain, surely, but some lower naval rank in simple white and blue with two sailors to guard and light the way. All smirked alike at her beardless face, her elite uniform in tow of a common wench. "Any assistance, sir? We heard a call." The one in command was gruffly affable.

An escort, a torch to light her way...three military men and a torch to light her face. Or the girl, who was likely set to rob the officer who lay unbuttoned and uncertainly unconscious a few steps away. Not Amanda's responsibility; but she'd take her chances with the thief before the men. "No," she said.

"You see, Captain? This one needs no assistance. Maybe you heard a cat?" The girl yowled a credible imitation of a tomcat that bounced off the wall and set the sailors grinning openly.

"Mind your purse, sir," said the leader, too seasoned to stand in the night and treat with a laced-up idiot and his whore. He and his grinning sailors (the damned mule was leering too) clacked away.

The light left with them, but Amanda had had time to see her companion clearly. She was a slender little thing, seeming young and still attractive, with dark curls and snapping black eyes. She would have fit the uniform more neatly than Amanda, with fewer inconvenient curves. Her dress was thin and short, mostly covered by the cloak. Her stockings were cheap but gay. And she cocked her head and stared Amanda up and down, her lip between her teeth.

"Pay me."

"Pay yourself. Be quick about it, before he wakes." Amanda looked uneasily down the passage. Not dead, she hoped. But the old goat deserved to lose his gold for being such a fool.

"Oh, that's cold, Colonel. And I thought you such a charmer. I'm no thief."

"Just a Good Samaritan handy with a half-brick. Well, _merci_ sweet, my gratitude and goodbye." She touched her shako in salute. Time to trot.

"Hey!"

Amanda set a brisk pace up the street, resetting her internal compass. She could see the sailors and mule not far ahead picking their way, in no great hurry. If this street led downhill to the waterfront, then her inn was to the left somewhere. The old goat had confused her path. What should have been a short parade in fancy dress was turning into a campaign march. She'd be split like a peach by the time she reached her rooms. The gap in her fly, where the button had torn off, did nothing to relieve the pressure. She'd welcome release and relief of a piss. She contemplated asking directions of the men ahead, coughing to prepare her deeper voice, when she heard a swift pat-pat of feet behind her.

"Hoy! Colonel!"

Amanda ducked her head and quickened her walk. As though that would help!

"Come back! You forgot something!" The voice was louder, the steps quicker. The sailors ahead walked slower than ever. In a moment she'd be forced to flee among or past them. Or join them, with the little thief in pursuit, maybe eager to sell a tale...there, now they stopped within earshot. Exasperated, Amanda ducked into the nearest patch of shadow, under a stone arch. She hoped it led to another alleyway: her hands revealed nothing but a shallow recess before a bricked-up door. She flattened herself against one edge and listened as the pursuing footsteps slowed.

"Now, what..."

A grab, a yank, and the girl was in her fists. Amanda swung her in, blocking her exit, pushing her back against the bricks.

"Gentle, you brute!"

"What do you want?" Amanda rasped.

"Pay me. I'll scream," she added, as Amanda's grip shifted. "My man's around. Close, he's everywhere. You owe me."

"Rob old Fritz back there. I've got nothing for you."

"I'm not a thief." Amanda twisted her fist and the girl gasped. "I can't. He's up, someone came." She shivered. "Protect me, dear Colonel. Kind Colonel, brave Colonel."

"That won't work. He didn't see you."

"Handsome Colonel." The girl squirmed suggestively. "The sailors did."

"I'm not a colonel."

The girl shrugged. Her upper arms were pinned; she put her hands on Amanda's waist. "I call 'em all Colonel. Shhh. Listen."

Amanda turned her face to the street, trying to hear. Something, someone might be coming. The girl bowed her head.

"Don't let them see us. Kind, merry, charming Colonel." Her fingers crept forward, she toyed with the torn buttonhole.

There, there it was. Men running by, hailing the sailor party. Someone else following at a staggering trot she recognized. Amanda shrank forward, crushing the girl between her and the bricks, trapping the girl's moving hands. Her bound breasts ached. Could the girl feel them? The lace and buttons of the dolman must hurt her; her throat and bodice were almost bare. She'd seen the notch of bone, the wings of her clavicles. The girl's lips were at her ear, her whisper stirring her hair.

"Pay me."

Amanda squeezed her eyes shut. Diseased limping hyena of a night! "Yes," she hissed. "For a service. Now be still." The steps, the bodies, the voices, passed by without halt. Maybe the girl knew another way to the inn's neighborhood. She could spare a few coppers for that, from the hussar's purse. Let them only get away unseen and unmolested.

"Ah, service. Yes, sir, for you." And the girl pushed one clever little hand up between Amanda's legs. Pushed the stocking and gold sausage so high and hard that Amanda gave a yelp and flinched back, grabbing her wrist.

"No. None of that." The girl's hand twisted in her grasp, forcing Amanda's legs apart. She felt the girl's thumb poking her, twisting around her stocking roll; she felt about to split. "I need a guide, _chérie,_ nothing...God!" She squirmed.

"I'll guide you. _Ici, ici._ " Her wicked thumb against Amanda's cleft screwed into an acute, jolting point. The shako bobbed. Ridiculous. Amanda backed off a scant pace and pushed away her hand.

"No."

"Yes." The girl smiled and hauled up her skirt. "I'm clean. See?" Amanda saw striped stockings tied with cheap cotton tapes above her knees, pinching her naked thighs. Between them...a shadow... "Feel." The girl winked, and her hand darted into her shadowed cunny and out. A damp finger traced under Amanda's nose. "Smell. Taste."

"Wrong tree, little monkey." She inhaled the sea. Marseille perfume, sailors called it. Well. But. "I need to find a street."

"Time for that, too. My mouth's as good as any boy's. And I'm not so much here." She pulled apart her bodice to show, yes, an elegantly flat chest with two plump nipples winking like currants. Her hand returned, clever fingers pressing up and back, trying to firm the sausage, and Amanda felt herself spreading open under them.

"War wound! No balls." She bit her lip and tried to sound regretful. But there was a rising tingle and heat, a metamorphosis of her trousers' binding bite, that shot red in the dark. She didn't really want to lose that determined, stroking hand.

"Well now. Ain't that a shame." The girl frowned. Her fingers assessed the stocking roll to its base, the now unsettled and damper stocking roll that, Amanda feared, would stain her blue crotch pink. "Not even..."

"Not a cherry stone."

"Hmm." The girl didn't stop, curse her. Maybe. She ran her fingernails along the stiff core of coins. Her rooting thumb pushed a fold of cloth just so, another jolt that made Amanda gasp. "Oho," she chuckled. She pushed, Amanda rolled to her side, and their positions were reversed. The little whore had her side now to the street, Amanda's back against the recess wall. "That's a game I can play as well." Her thumb pressed and rolled against the lightning spot, her sideways hand, edge like a shovel blade, rocked hard and rhythmic, driving the roll back and in...

" _Zut!_ " Amanda gasped, she grabbed the girl around her waist. The girl's pumping elbow knocked her hand awry. She pinched a currant nipple and bit her lip against the rising, overlapping waves. She spread her thighs, knees out; her back arched, her pelvis jerked, her rump bounced against the bricks; the girl played her a merry tune.

"There, that's a good 'un," crooned the girl. Amanda's head banged back onto the wall into a shower of stars and sparks, and stars and sparks and blackness, under her shako peak.

***

"Daughter of a dog." Thank Immortal healing, only a dull ache lingered at the base of her skull. The pelisse was gone, with the hussar's purse and saber. The little bitch left her her trouser buttons and her boots. Amanda groaned and groped between her legs. Thank God the roll was still there. Sitting on the ground, she unbuttoned and tugged and pulled the sorry, unraveling, provocative sausage up and out. There was enough night remaining to cover her condition. Amanda creaked to her knees, then to her feet. She stuffed the roll into her shako, set it gamely on her head, and with a more forgiving seam between her legs, ventured forth.

And not, not until she was safe at home; not until she peeled the blue (and now, yes, pinkly stained) breeches down, taking care and time and maybe giving the smallest finger flip and scroll in memory, did she laugh at herself. And count again her gold.

*The End*

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Carene for suffering through different stages of this for a year or so, and putting up with concomitant whining from me. Thanks as well to Amand-r for looking and advice. Originally posted on November 20, 2008.


End file.
